BOSOLA: Let me see. You have a reasonable good face for't already,
And your night-cap expresses your ears sufficient largely.
I would have you learn to twirl the strings of your band
With a good grace, and in a set speech at th'end of every sentence
To hum three or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again,
To recover your memory. When you come to be a president
In criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him, but if
You frown upon him, and threaten him, let him be sure to 'scape
The gallows.

CASTRUCHIO: I would be a very merry president.

BOSOLA: Do not sup a' nights; 'twill beget you
An admirable wit.

CASTRUCHIO: Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel;
For they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom,
And that makes them so valiant.
But how shall I know whether the people take me
For an eminent fellow?

BOSOLA: I will teach a trick to know it.
Give out you lie a-dying, and if you
Hear the common people curse you,
Be sure you are taken for one of the prime night-caps.

BOSOLA: Why, from your scurvy
face-physic.
To behold thee not painted inclines somewhat near
A miracle. These in thy face here were deep ruts
And foul sloughs the last progress.
There was a lady in France that, having the small-pox,
Flay'd the skin off her face to make it more level;
And whereas before she looked like a nutmeg
grater,
After she resembled an abortive hedgehog.

BOSOLA: One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft,
To find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews' spittle,
And their young childrens' ordure, and all these for the face.
I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet
Of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting.
Here are two of you, whose sin of your youth is the very
Patrimony of the physician; makes him renew
His foot-cloth with the spring, and change his
High-priced courtesan with the fall of the
leaf.
I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves.
Observe my meditation now:
What thing is in this outward form of man
To be belov'd? We account it ominous
If nature do produce a colt, or lamb,
A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling
A man, and fly from't as a prodigy.
Man stands amaz'd to see his deformity
In any other creature but himself.
But in our own flesh, though we bear diseases
Which have their true names only ta'en from beasts,
As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle;
Though we are eaten up of lice and worms,
And though continually we bear about us
A rotten and dead body, we delight
To hide it in rich tissue; all our fear,
Nay all our terror, is, lest our physician
Should put us in the ground, to be made sweet.
Your wife's gone to Rome. You two couple, and get you
To the wells at Lucca to recover your aches.

Exit CASTRUCHIO and OLD LADY

I have other work on foot. I observe our Duchess
Is sick a-days: she pukes, her stomach seethes,
The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue,
She wanes i'th' cheek, and waxes fat i'th'flank,
And, contrary to our Italian fashion,
Wears a loose-bodied gown. There's somewhat in't.
I have a trick may chance discover it,
A pretty one: I have bought some apricocks,
The first our spring yields.

Enter ANTONIO and DELIO

DELIO: And so long since married?
You amaze me.

ANTONIO: Let me seal your lips forever,
For did I think that anything but th' air
Could carry these words from you, I should wish
You had no breath at all.

[to BOSOLA] Now, sir, in your contemplation?
You are studying to become a great wise fellow?

BOSOLA: O, sir, the opinion of wisdom
Is a foul tetter that runs
All over a man's body. If simplicity
Direct us to have no evil,
It directs us to a happy being, for the subtlest folly
Proceeds from the subtlest wisdom.
Let me be simply honest.

ANTONIO: Because you would not seem to appear to th' world
Puff'd up with your preferment, you continue
This out-of-fashion melancholy. Leave it, leave it.

BOSOLA: Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any
Compliment whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you?
I look no higher than I can reach.
They are the gods that must ride on winged horses.
A lawyer's mule of a slow pace will both suit
My disposition and business, for mark me,
When a man's mind rides faster than his horse can gallop,
They quickly both tire.

BOSOLA: O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant,
Chief man with the duchess; a duke was yourCousin-german, removed. Say you were lineally
Descended from King Pepin, or he himself,
What of this? Search the heads of the greatest rivers
In the world, you shall find them
But bubbles of water. Some would think
The souls of princes were brought forth
By some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons.
They are deceived, there's the same hand to them;
The like passions sway them; the same reason
That makes a vicar to go to law for a tithe-pig,
And undo his neighbors, makes them spoil
A whole province, and batter down
Goodly cities with the cannon.

Enter DUCHESS and LADIES

DUCHESS: Your arm, Antonio: do I not grow fat?
I am exceeding short-winded. Bosola,
I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter,
Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.